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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Mr Raymond Tam, at a media session after attending the special meeting of the Legislative Council Finance Committee this afternoon (April 1):
Reporter: Whether you see a breakthrough in the trip to Shanghai? Would your bureau be spending more to educate the public on what is in line with the Basic Law and what is not?
Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs: It is our duty to spend appropriate amount of public resources to promote the Basic Law, in particular for this year. We are conducting a very important consultation on our constitutional development. So it is only fair and necessary for us to inject more public funds into this area. I hope that by doing so, the public would be interested and would thereby forward to us their specific proposals and views so that we can have a wider basis for us to put forward our proposal in the second phase of our consultation in the latter part of this year.
For the Shanghai trip, I won't say it's a breakthrough per se, but, certainly, it is a very good basis for the ongoing consultation and our ongoing process to bridge the differences among various political parties. In particular, I personally have received in the past specific requests from many political parties including some from the pan-democratic camp that they would treasure an opportunity to talk directly to the Central Government in respect of their opinion and views on how universal suffrage for the CE (Chief Executive) election should be conducted in 2017. Therefore, we have now created such an opportunity. I am glad that more and more Legislative Councillors have seized the opportunity and to express their willingness to join the delegation to Shanghai next week. I, myself, would go too. I am sure many Legislative Councillors would also, as in my case, look forward to the very fruitful, very useful and candid conversations with the relevant officials from the Central Government next week.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Tuesday, April 1, 2014
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